On Edge
by DeathByMushrooms
Summary: He could pretend their relationship was strictly platonic, but only for so long. One shot Paire.


**Summary:** He could pretend their relationship was strictly platonic, but only for so long.  
**Disclaimer:** If I had half the genius of Tim Kring…  
**A/N:** My first Heroes fic, so be gentle. Yeah, I'm still writing my Grey's Anatomy fic, I just had … an interesting month, to say the least. Writing a cynical, confused Addison mirrored my own thoughts too much. So here's this, a bit of fluff. _Un-betaed_ fluff, I might add. So forgive any mistakes you might find herein.

This is set around Christmastime, which would put it about a month after the Big New York Bang. I've implicated a lot of what might or could happen into this, but nothing specific. Just so you're not confused and wondering what in the world they're talking about.

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**On Edge**  
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Peter couldn't forget this place for the life of him. In truth, he wasn't very sure if he wanted to. Often he would shut his eyes and wonder what his life would be like if it hadn't happened—if he hadn't followed Hiro's advice, hadn't listened to his clairvoyant dreams of better things ahead. A shiver shot down his spine at the mere thought, this time being no different. Though, he reasoned, it might be the wintry winds. He probably shouldn't be up here in such weather.

He wrapped his trademark brown trench coat tighter about his waist but to no avail; the cold seeped in, digging into his flesh. He wondered vaguely why it was so cold—after all, wasn't this Texas? Perhaps there was something symbolic in the peculiar climate. He shrugged off such stupid thoughts and began pacing the ledge of the building.

"Hey, you're gonna fall off there if you're not too careful."

Peter turned, a little surprised. He thought that by coming here on a Saturday night no one would be there to bother him. But the person before him only caused him to smile.

"I think I'll be okay." He grinned, walking on with his arms spread for balance. "After all, I did fall off here once." He glanced over his shoulder and smirked. "And I heal fast."

Claire crossed her arms over her parka-covered chest. "So I've heard." She came to the ledge and sat down behind him with her legs dangled over the side of the building.

"It's not _that _cold, you know," he said, giving up to sit by her. He was eyeing her parka, zipped to the chin with the hood drawn tight like the drawstrings of a change purse.

"Yeah it is. You're just weird." She smiled good-naturedly and flicked the lapel of his coat with a gloved hand.

"Hey! And you're normal, Miss I-Can-Heal-Myself-Instantly?"

"Touché," she laughed.

They sat in silence for a moment, each staring off into the midnight sky. No stars were out, only clouds and streetlights in the distance. Peter took a strange comfort in the tiny orange pinpricks of light, wondering to whom each one belonged. Perhaps one was the porch light of a grandmother awaiting the arrival of her grandchildren for the holidays. Maybe another was the headlights of an idling car parked outside the cinema withholding lovers locked in embrace. There was so much hope and happiness in the world that people failed to recognize.

Except Claire. She understood what most people seemed to not. She'd had it rough, and they had come to be friends. She called him her Hero, he called her his Cheerleader. It seemed so normal, but beneath the surface, their friendship was more complex than anything he knew.

"You okay, Peter?" He could see the glow of her large, once-innocent eyes even without the assistance of stars or the moon.

He smiled reassuringly. "Yep." Another silence, though nothing uncomfortable. "What're you doing out here, anyway?"

She shrugged, staring at the ground below. "I dunno. I just felt like coming." Her head cocked to the side. "What about you? Texan high schools aren't typical places for superhero nurses from Manhattan to hang out at midnight, ya know."

"I know. I just … clairvoyance, remember?" The smile he wore now was a sad one, almost regretful. His dreams were more frequent since … everything. More trivial, too.

"Oh yeah. So you knew I'd be here?"

"Not exactly. I just saw myself … happy here." His last words came out in a whisper.

"Happy here? How do you see that?"

He shook his head, looking beyond her towards the security lights around the football field. "I don't … know, exactly. I just saw myself sitting on this ledge. And I was happy."

"Really? This is all it takes for you to be happy? Sitting on top of a school with a seventeen-year-old in a ridiculously poofy pink parka?"

He sighed, eyes slowly dragging back to hers once more. "I guess so," he said softly.

Peter looked down and laced his bare hands with her warm, gloved ones. It was a friendly gesture, nothing more. He knew she saw it as such. What they had was stronger than a romance, and he'd only known her for a couple of months. It was better than anything he had ever known.

What he refused to realize, though, was that he was falling for his Cheerleader hard and fast, that he probably couldn't live without her. She was four years younger than him; that was a pretty big gap when you're only pushing twenty-two. Realizing that he was in love with her would cause him to rethink everything about his life—especially if the feelings weren't returned.

"You're zoning again, Petrelli!" She snapped the fingers of her free hand in front of his face, bringing him back to reality—a place he was having trouble staying lately.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

She nudged him with her shoulder. "What's bothering you?"

He smiled, shook his head, and squeezed her hand. "Nothing's up, Claire. I promise." He paused noticeably, eyes fixed on their intertwined hands. "Things are just so different. Eight months ago, I wouldn't have thought in my wildest dreams that I would be here. That I would have gone through all this. It's … detrimental to the psyche."

A curious smile spread across her face. "You're still my Hero, Peter. Even though there are others like us, even after everything, you're my Hero. You'll _always_ be my Hero."

"And even though you're not the only cheerleader in the world, you're still my Cheerleader."

This seemed to content her. She laid her head on his shoulder happily. He couldn't imagine how she could still be so happy. He thought that perhaps it was a façade, that beneath her blithe exterior she was as much a train wreck of conflicting emotions as the rest of them—Peter especially. He knew that, by far, he was the most affected of all—which probably explained his sudden urge to visit a high school in Texas.

"This is nice, Peter," she whispered.

He took the opportunity to disentwine their fingers and wrap his arm around her waist. She responded by scooting closer to him until he could feel the warmth radiating from her, poofy parka and all.

"I know."

"Why can't we be normal?" She wasn't whining or complaining, she was merely questioning. "If we were normal—"

"If we were normal we wouldn't have met," he substituted. He didn't want to know how life would be different if he didn't have his abilities, though he often wondered just as she did.

"I know… but don't you wonder why God chose us? Why _we_ are different instead of… my brother or your mom or … just someone else."

"I guess so. Actually, no, you know what I wonder?"

"What's that?"

"Why does _Nathan_ get to fly? That's so cool."

She was silent for a moment. "But yours is so much better. It saved so many people. It makes you who you are. Like … you wouldn't be you if all you could do was fly." She paused thoughtfully. "You couldn't have saved me. You wouldn't be my Hero."

"Yeah. Yeah … I guess you're right." For someone so _young_, she was brilliant, probably more so than she realized. Her brand of simplistic genius never failed to amaze Peter.

"What's it like to fly?" she asked, half sheepishly, half like a kid asking about the moon.

"It's like … like…" He struggled for the words, but they wouldn't come. How could anyone explain the exhilaration of something so incredible? "Like being in love. You're soaring with clouds between your knees. You don't know where you're going, you can't see roads or signs or maps… you just move with the wind. Every time you go up or down, your stomach flips. You can feel the warmth of the sun and the cold of the rain clouds all at once. You never want it to end, but when your feet touch ground again, you know that you'll never forget that one experience, that it's with you forever…"

He realized once the words were out that he hadn't been talking about flying at all. He had, of course, been referring to _her_. His jaw went slack with realization.

"Peter…" she whispered, her face unreadable. "You're so…"

He waited, scared of what she would say. But her head was off his shoulder and her eyes bore into his with more honesty than he'd received in a single look in all his life. And then, he just knew that whatever he was fearing before was unimportant. He knew it all by the look she gave him.

And so, arm slowly snaking up her back to cup her face, he chastely kissed her, allowing his lips to linger for a moment before pulling back. "Romantic?"

She smiled wide. "Cheesy," she breathed. "I was going to say cheesy." And with that she returned his kiss.

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_Fin_  
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**A/N:** Oh, fluff. I miss writing fluff. I'd almost forgotten how to do it. This was all written in one sitting and never glanced at by anyone but me so it probably really sucks. Sorry about that, but the concept of a first kiss was eating at my soul.

Please review; it's my first Heroes fic after all!


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